


Body and Soul

by ChalkHillBlue



Category: Holby City
Genre: Body Swap AU, F/F, Insecure computer password, Mutual ust and mutual weirdness, fluff and smut and angst, i don't even know man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 00:35:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10525218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChalkHillBlue/pseuds/ChalkHillBlue
Summary: Bernie could admit that she wanted Serena's body. But she hadn't meant like this.Body-swap AU. Set between 'Emotionally Yours' and 'Life in the Freezer'.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody on Tumblr requested a Freaky Friday AU. I've never seen any of those movies or read the book, so I figured that 100% qualified me to give this a go. It makes as much sense as waking up in somebody else's body can make. Rated for later chapters.
> 
> (As always, this comes from a fluffy place of Bernie and Serena being utterly delighted by each other, but maybe keep an eye on the author's notes for places where consent might get a bit weird on account of how _that's technically not your own hand, Bernie_.)

 

 

 

**Prologue**

Time seems to fracture, and Bernie will never reassemble the sequence of events in any coherent order. There’s the explosion itself, which sounds weirdly small and distant. Then there’s the roar in her ears so loud it’s more force than sound. There’s the rush of adrenaline in her blood. And the image of their patient’s face, wild-eyed and frantic as he tosses something towards them that she registers in the last second. There is pain. There’s the cold tile floor of AAU beneath her hands, and the soft silk of Serena’s blouse against her forearm - Serena’s body protected below her own – a desperate instinctive feeling of relief at her wholeness. The searing pain of something against her back. There’s the taste of warm coffee and the sound of Serena’s laugh, but that’s from before. There’s Serena’s mouth against her own and a voice begging her to wake up, but that never happened at all, did it?

\---

It is dark. Bernie feels cold, she thinks. Which is odd, because she doesn’t seem to have a body to feel the cold with. Everything is very quiet. And so dark. She doesn’t know how long she has been here, or where ‘here’ is. It feels like it may have been a long time. It’s hard to remember what came before. There was pain she thinks. Somewhere. Not here though. Here there is nothing, and no way to know if hours or seconds or years or days are passing. She tries to count, but the numbers furl away from her. And she doesn’t know how long it takes to count each one in any case.

She is still here in the dark, but now something is different. There is something out there, just at the edge of whatever this place is. It might be a sound, or a smell, or a colour – it’s hard to tell without a body; she just knows it’s there. Gradually it gets louder. (Or maybe brighter?) It is good to not be alone anymore.

It might be later still. The thing out there that isn’t Bernie is more insistent and she decides that it’s a voice.  At first it was soothing, but now it’s bothering her. It is not a happy thing. She cannot make out any words but she worries from how the voice sounds that wherever it’s coming from is where the pain is. Bernie doesn’t know if she should reach towards it to help somebody else who is hurt, or run away from it in case the pain turns out to be her own.

But now the voice is fading again. Bernie begins to panic. She does not want to be alone. Pain is bad, but alone is worse. She cannot be alone again – the thought of the voice leaving is horrific. Every time it falls quiet she feels empty. So Bernie stretches out towards it – scrabbling without limbs, trying to find the point where it is strongest.

She finds it. There are no words that she can understand, but she recognises something. This voice (scent? colour?) is a safe haven. Relief washes over her. She reaches out and something of her touches something out there that is not her. For a moment everything is fine. She is safe. It will all be all right. This is the way home.

And then she slips.

She wobbles, just a little. Feels her grip loosen. She loses contact with her rescuer. It only happens for the briefest of instants. Almost at once she has been caught again in a strong grip, but that second of lost contact is enough to fill her with panic and terror. She cannot let go. She must not must not must not let go. It is intolerable to know that letting go is even possible.

It feels wrong even as she does it, but Bernie cannot help herself. She clings tight to her lifeline and then tighter and then, with all her might, she _pulls_. And the universe spins on its axis.

 

**Chapter 1**

It’s not the first time Bernie has woken up in the on-call room. She tries not to do it too much, tries to preserve the privilege of a consultant – but in front-line medicine you stay when you’re needed.

Usually, though, she can remember how she got here.

She stares at the ceiling and tries to remember. She feels strange - uncomfortable and disconcerted. There was an explosion, she remembers. Nothing else after that. Had anyone been hurt? Where is Serena?

Bernie swings herself out of bed and stumbles as she tries to stand up. She looks down at her legs to see what she tripped over and stares. Something is wrong with her sight. Her legs look wrong. She shakes her head and moves to the sink in the corner to splash some water on her face. When she looks up Serena is there and Bernie nearly jumps out of her skin.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack – what happened?”

Serena speaks at the same time Bernie does. She hears her voice, but can’t work out what she said.

“Sorry, you go first,” she and Serena say at the same time. They laugh at the same time. They stop laughing and frown in confusion at the exact same time.

“Serena?” Bernie says. She can’t hear her own voice.

“Serena?” Serena says too. For all the world she could be mocking Bernie, but her face just looks confused and there’s no delay between them. She spoke at precisely the same moment as Bernie did.

Where the hell is Serena even standing? Bernie’s hindbrain had registered it as bomb damage, she realises, without even really thinking about it. A hole in the wall like so many she’s seen in war. But as her confused state begins to clear a little she realises Serena is staring at her through a perfectly square window. Over the sink. Where the mirror used to be.

“Serena?” she tries again. And this time she is certain that the only voice is Serena’s, low and uncertain as she says her own name.

Bernie reaches out to touch the window. She touches glass and Serena’s reflected hand, which reaches out at the same time. However she moves her hand, the movements are mirrored. And she feels in her own tightening chest a rising sense of panic that matches the expression on Serena’s face.

Bernie whirls away and scrabbles for the door handle, wrenches it open and stumbles out into the corridor. Her only thought is to get away. To get help. She nearly collides with Raf.

“Serena? Are you alright?”

“No. I’m not. That’s not… I’m not -.”

“Woah, woah, woah! Come here and sit down.”

Raf guides her back into the on call room, and Bernie lets him even though it’s the last place she wants to go. She sits down as he runs some tests. She tries to work out how to explain that she’s seeing another woman’s face in the mirror.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Raf asks when he’s satisfied with the checks he’s made of her physical responses.

“I woke up here, and – um –“

“You came here to rest while we waited for the results. Do you remember that?”

Bernie shakes her head. Doesn’t know what results he means. Raf looks concerned.

“Well, all your scans came back clear. I was just coming to tell you. But you seem very disoriented. What’s the last thing you remember, Serena?”

“Why do you keep calling me Serena?”

Raf laughs. “Oh, I’m sorry, _Ms Campbell_. There can’t be that much wrong with you if your pride is what’s smarting most. Nobody actually _wants_ to have to treat you as a patient you know.”

“I’m sorry,” Bernie’s head is swimming. How can she explain?

“You need rest. More rest than you can get here. Look, stay here for an hour so we can make sure you’re physically okay and then I’ll drive you home. I need to go and check on Bernie. I’m sorry; it’s still Bedlam in there.”

Before Bernie can ask what he means Raf is gone again leaving her alone.

\--

She stands perfectly still for a moment and concentrates on her own breathing. Everything feels wrong and she doesn’t know where to start. Even her breathing is strange somehow. Like the rhythm is off.

Slowly and with a sickening sense of dread Bernie turns back to the mirror. Her reflection still looks like Serena. She stares and stares. Serena stares back. She runs her hands through her hair and when her reflection’s fingers slip out of its short locks, she feels her own fingers meet empty air too. She realises she cannot see her own fringe. She tries to pull her own hair forward – it should be long enough (blonde enough, unruly enough) for her to see, but she can’t. There is no long hair to pull.

And now Bernie looks down at her own body. She’s wearing the wrong scrubs – sky blue for AAU not her own trauma navy. Yet that’s the _least_ wrong part. Nothing about this body is right. Her stomach churns with nausea. Once, when she was on tour, she’d taken some shrapnel to her leg and had to have it removed. Afterwards they’d given her heavy morphine. For a full day all the walls had looked like curved spheres and her staff had appeared to be walking on the ceiling. This felt like that.

Bernie forces her eyes open and looks again, alternating between the mirror and looking down at herself. She knows this body, though she’s never seen it from this angle. God knows she’s stared at this body enough in the past six months. She runs her hands over her bare forearms and can feel the touch on her skin even while her eyes register that it is Serena’s hands she is watching move. What the hell?

_Ok, Wolfe. Think. Use your brain. Assess. Diagnose. Sit down before you fall down._

She tries to follow her own advice.

First she quashes the panic. That’s the easy part, thanks to a lifetime of army training.

This is some sort of psychological trauma, she thinks. Her brain is tricking itself. Some neurological damage the scans Raf mentioned had missed. That must be it.

But Raf had called her ‘Serena’. That gives her pause. Why would he do that?

Is it possible that she _is_ Serena? Is thinking she’s Bernie the traumatic response to the explosion? It doesn’t seem possible. She just remembered her army training, for one. She tests herself – she remembers the army. She remembers Afghanistan. She thinks of her kids and remembers Cam as a baby with a surge of love. Thinks of Charlotte when she last saw her and is hit with a wave of sadness. It all feels right and familiar.

She tries to remember Elinor. If she is really Serena, surely she must remember Elinor? But Bernie has never met Serena’s daughter. She knows what she looks like. She’s seen pictures, and has teased Serena that Edward couldn’t have been involved at all – that Serena must simply have created her daughter by mitosis, they look so much alike. So when she thinks of Elinor it’s with a certain fondness because she is connected to Serena and Serena is Bernie’s best friend. But there’s no mad rush of maternal love.

No. She is certain who she is – she is Berenice Wolfe. Ex-RAMC. Divorcee. Mother of two. Excellent trauma surgeon. Poker ace. Crap at snooker. But those feet, down there, smaller than her own, kicking a nervous tattoo against the floor? Those are Serena Campbell’s feet. Even though she, Bernie, can feel every movement.   _What the hell is going on?_

Suddenly she needs to be outside. She’s not sure what Serena does when she needs to think, but Bernie goes outside – to the roof if there’s time, but anywhere she can grab some fresh air will do. Unfortunately, fate has other plans. As soon as she leaves the on-call room she bumps into Raf again. (Does he do nothing but linger in the corridor all day?) Then Bernie feels a little bad for her irritation, because Raf is smiling at her so kindly.

“They’ve evacuated everyone they can to the other wards until we’ve cleared up the mess, and Ric is going to cover for us with the ones that are left. I am under orders to get you home in one piece.”

“What about Bernie?” Bernie asks. She hopes that this will get a rise out of him. That it will crack the façade and he’ll admit to her this is all some sort of ludicrous trick. It doesn’t work.

Instead he just gives her an even softer smile:

“I promise you I’ll keep you posted with any changes. And Fletch is under orders to call you the second she wakes up. She’ll be alright, Serena.”

It’s too much to take in. Bernie gives up and lets Raf Di Lucca lead the way out of the hospital.

\--

The drive is quiet. Bernie has too much thinking to do to say anything, and Raf seems to be happy to let her brood. He doesn’t even ask her why she’s carrying Serena’s bag and coat as well as her own. (Or, well, Bernie’s bag and coat as well as her own from his point of view, she supposes. She’d been completely unable to decide which to bring. She is certain she is going mad.)

At first she fools herself that Raf might somehow have meant her own flat when he said ‘home’. When they pass the first turn for her road she can still convince herself that he’s just taking the longer way around to avoid school traffic. When they go through the roundabout she knows it’s a lost cause. She has resigned herself to the inevitable by the time they pull up in front of Serena’s house.

Raf finally breaks the silence:

“I don’t like leaving you on your own tonight. You seemed really confused when you woke up earlier.”

“I’m fine.” She isn’t, but she desperately needs time alone.

“Is there any chance that Jason might come back early?”

Oh God. She’d completely forgotten Jason. How could she have forgotten Jason? He’s away with his chess club, isn’t he? With Alan – they’ve gone together. Somewhere south. Serena told her. She remembers relaxing and watching Serena’s mouth as she chatted away about the details.

“No,” she manages, realising Raf needs a response. “He’s away until next Thursday, I think.”

“You think?”

“I _think_ it’s best not to worry him, was what I was going to say. You know what he’s like about routine. Look, Raf. I’ll be fine. All the scans were clear, remember? I just need sleep.”

“Well, if you’re sure?”

“Perfectly sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Raf looks as though he’s about to say something else. But instead he leans in and surprises her with a soft kiss pressed to her cheek. It is this more than anything else that convinces Bernie that whatever is going on, Raf is not playing a trick. He is full of fondness for Serena and has no concept of Bernie Wolfe being here at all, she realises.

She watches and waves while his car pulls away. Partly in gratitude at his kindness to Serena, and mostly so he won’t see her fumble to find the right key to the front door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernie looks in mirrors some more. Serena has bad IT security. (We're going to be with Bernie for a few chapters, but there'll be Serena-in-Bernie too later)

Bernie has been in Serena’s house before, though not that often. They tend to live most of their lives in the hospital. They’ve neither of them ever really understood the theory of work and life being separate. So she knows the kitchen from a few social visits, and she has been in the lounge a couple of times with Jason while waiting for Serena to get ready or to finish a call. Beyond that, Serena’s house is new to her. Nevertheless, when she closes the door against the world and finds herself in solitude the place feels like a sanctuary.

She makes herself some coffee for the sake of something familiar while she waits for a better idea to come along. The coffee tastes a little strange. She doesn’t know whether it’s because Serena has different milk or because Serena has different taste buds.

At first she doesn’t recognise the tone from Serena’s phone when it goes off. She scrabbles through Serena’s bag looking for it, sees Jason’s name on the screen, and tries and fails to answer it. It’s only after a few minutes fumbling that she realises this isn’t Serena’s ringtone and Jason isn’t calling. She must have set an alarm for something. ‘Jason’ on her screen is a reminder. Bernie ponders for a moment. She washes up her mug and puts it back in the cabinet. Then she takes it back out again and makes more coffee, repeating the routine. She’s halfway through it when her brain makes sense of the alarm and the message. Jason is away. Serena has set herself a reminder to call him.

Without stopping to think Bernie grabs Serena’s phone. It’s seven minutes past the hour. She dials Jason and he answers on the second ring.

“Hello, Auntie Serena”

“Jason. How are things in, uh, how are you doing? How’s Alan?"

“We’re both fine. You’re late."

“Yes, I _am_ sorry, Jason.” (Bernie realises with some surprise that she’s fallen naturally into the speech rhythms she’s so often heard Serena use with her nephew.) “Problem with the signal,” she lies.

“Okay. Well, I have to go now. We’re going to have haddock for dinner. Call me on time tomorrow. Say hi to Bernie for me.”

“Will do. Goodbye, Jas-“ But he’s already gone.

It’s only after she puts down the phone that it strikes Bernie what she has done. Jason likes to hear from Serena regularly so that he knows she’s okay. He worries otherwise. Because of his mum, Bernie thinks. Or just because it’s stressful to be away from home. But Bernie has lied to him. Serena _isn’t_ fine. Bernie doesn’t even know where Serena is. It hits her like a physical blow. She’s been reeling at her own situation – at the impossibility of it all – but now she realises with horror that she has lost Serena and nobody else knows she’s missing. Bernie needs to fix this – all of this. She has to find a solution and put things back the way they’re meant to be. Filled with a sudden sense of purpose she leaves the kitchen and goes in search of Serena’s computer.

\--

Serena’s laptop is on a beautiful desk in a perfectly arranged home office, because of course it is. Bernie has found it, she has powered it up, and now she’s staring at the blank password screen wondering whether she should ring a taxi and head back to her own flat for her computer instead. But time is of the essence, so she tries to guess.

She gets it in one go. Serena’s password is ‘Elinor’. Bernie is never going to let Serena criticise her over any breaches of IT policy ever again for so long as they live.

That thought recalls her to her current dilemma. Not knowing where else to start she begins with Google. Her fingers stumble a bit over the keys and she finds herself staring at her hands. Bernie knows that Serena is a much faster touch typist than she is, but also (and this is a secret she’ll take to the grave) a considerably worse speller, who’s inclined to let the spellcheck sort out the bulk of it. Bernie finds herself wondering about muscle memory. How much are Serena’s fingers trying to pull against Bernie as she types. Despite herself her curiosity is piqued. Impossible weirdness aside, there were surely scientific and medical research opportunities here. If only she had Serena with her bounce ideas off. She feels bereft – she wants Serena here with her, but given her current physical situation she’s not even sure what wishing for that means right now. So she goes back to Google and searches.

There are movies. Books. Sci-fi discussion groups. Some strange Reddit threads, and a lot of creative writing exercises. No matter how she tries to tweak her searches Bernie has no luck finding a lead. She tries more technical terminology, then more colloquial words. After an hour she finds herself on a site that sounds promising until she realises it’s a hub for parapsychology. She closes the tab. Her immediate reaction after that is to go back to medical journals and databases. ‘Elinor’ is not the password for Serena’s log-in to the BMJ. She’s gotten Serena locked out of her account through wrong guesses before she remembers that she can just log in with her own credentials.

Unfortunately, peer-reviewed sources prove no more immediate help than the wider web. She finds plenty on serious brain injuries, on altered behaviour, on disassociation. But nothing lines up with her own experiences today. Her brain is too tired to think any more. One or both of herself and Serena needs sleep. She raids Serena’s fridge for some food, hopes she hasn’t taken anything that will cause trouble when Jason gets back, and then makes her way upstairs to unknown territory.

\--

Inside Serena’s bedroom Bernie is once again filled with the desire to flee. It’s too much. She wants to go back to her own flat, where the furniture is mid-range flat-pack, the wardrobe is full of her own things, and the air doesn’t carry the lingering scent of Serena’s perfume. She wants to be miles away, with no greater responsibilities than deciding whether or not to watch an hour of crap telly or just go straight to bed. (And yes, okay, the responsibility to get enough sleep for the next day when she’ll hold patients’ lives in her hands, but that’s medicine. That doesn’t count.) Instead, she is in Serena’s room and faced with a night in bed with Serena in a very different sense than she could ever possibly have imagined.

She wishes very much that she had not called Jason earlier. It’s left her heavy with the sense of her own inadequate custodianship here. Serena’s body is a temple in which Bernie is a trespasser and a prisoner and she’s filled with worry now about how to treat it. (She’s already aware that she’s spent the last few hours dragging her hands through her hair in a way that Serena never does. She has dishevelled it. She should wash it before she returns it. She has absolutely no right to wash it.)

_Okay. Start small, Wolfe._

She finds pyjamas under the pillow. This is a relief. They are soft, comfortable, tartan. They will cover her up and she doesn’t have to go rooting through Serena’s private things to find them. This Bernie counts as a win.

At some point she will have to shower. It’s not just the hair, or sitting around in scrubs. Serena was in an explosion today (Bernie is pretty sure that part is real, though she’ll need to confirm things tomorrow). She found dust on Serena’s neck earlier. Does Serena shower at night or in the mornings, Bernie wonders. (And there’s a question she wouldn’t have let herself even entertain twenty four hours ago.) Morning, she suspects. But right now Bernie feels like tackling the problem head on. She doesn’t want to lie dreading it all night. And somehow she’d rather do this after dark than in the light of morning. That’ll be something to do with the guilt then, she thinks.

Bernie buys some time getting things ready. Pyjamas and towel close to hand. Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel ready to go. She tests the shower, makes sure she knows how it all works. Raises the shower head a little automatically, then lowers it remembering that she doesn’t need to adjust for the difference now that she is Serena’s height. Having stalled as long as she reasonably can she calls up every reserve of strength she has, turns off the bathroom light, and showers in the dark.

She keeps the water hot. She keeps the shower short. She keeps her hands away from her body as much as she can, washing Serena’s short hair at speed, letting the water and gravity do what they will with the suds. In truth she’s so anxious that it almost feels like an out-of-body experience anyway. Alas, not quite out of body enough to put things right. Towelling off is trickier, but she keeps her eyes closed. Acts as though this is just the same as any other day. Tries to ignore the, well, situation of different curves. As she pulls on Serena’s pyjamas she bangs hard against the towel rod and feels a simultaneous pain in her hip and in her conscience. That's definitely going to have left a bruise. Still, by the time she turns the light back on she feels she’s come through with her own honour and Serena’s privacy pretty well intact. She’s seen more of Serena when changing in the locker room.

Relieved and tired Bernie gets on with her night’s routine. She can’t decide if it’s weird to use Serena’s toothbrush, and is glad to find a new one in a packet in the holder. All in all, she thinks she’s managed this as well as anyone could and probably better than most. At least until she looks up and catches sight of her reflection in the mirror. She’s been assiduously avoiding it, but after brushing her teeth it’s just reflex to glance in the mirror. And there is Serena Campbell looking back at her. Her hair wet. Her face bare of make-up and sweetly, unbearably vulnerable.

She has never seen Serena like this, she realises. She's seen her after long days of surgery, when they are all exhausted and unkept. But even then, she realises now, Serena is careful of her appearance. She has never seen her scrubbed clean. Her cheeks a little redder. Her lips a little chapped. Hey unguarded eyes a little tired. Bernie is caught off guard by the loveliness of this Serena. Best of all, Serena is smiling at her. That smile she's seen before - when she told her she was fantastic and fearless.

It takes a second for Bernie to realise that it isn't Serena looking at her that way. Serena is not here. It is her own response to Serena, through Serena's face, that she is seeing. And she realises again her trespass. She may not have chosen it but she is in the wrong all the same - taking an intimacy she has not earned.

Bernie does sleep that night, in Serena's huge soft bed. She is too tired not to. Her dreams are full of explosions. Marcus glares at her. Alex too. She is surrounded by women in fatigues. They are all Serena. They stare at her in horror. Bernie looks down and sees she has no body at all.


End file.
